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'Sherlock' Star Benedict Cumberbatch Is The Next Star Trek Villain

Trekmovie.com is reporting that Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch has been officially cast to play the villain in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek sequel after talks with Benicio del Toro for the role fell through.

There’s no word on who Cumberbatch will be playing yet. Unlike my colleague Mark Hughes, I’m personally opposed to that villain being Khan. But frankly, Cumberbatch is so good that the villain he’s playing could be a tribble and I’d still watch. He’s amazing.

If you haven’t seen the BBC’s 21st century reboot of the Holmes canon, Sherlock, I highly recommend that you take the time to do so now. Check out the trailer for the first season:

Personally, I hope that the new Star Trek sequel slows things down a little bit and pulls something interesting from the depths of the Trek canon. Too many of the Trek films have tried to be as good as the Wrath of Khan and failed miserably. I’m hoping that Abrams goes a different route than just more kinetic action.

At any rate, we’ll know what the film’s about soon enough. Shooting will begin in just a couple of weeks and the film itself is set to be released in May of 2013.

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He is a great actor- I received season 1 of the new ‘Holmes’ as a gift and it took me nearly a year to get around to watching it. I thought the modernization was great, and though it took a while, the adaptation of the characters grew on me by the end of the season, and the final episode was absolutely fantastic.

As an actor, Cumberbatch was great, and I have no doubt he’d be a great villain. Heck, Holmes is about 25% villain already.

I would love to see them have Khan as the villain, provided that do it as cheesy and over-the-top as Montalban’s Khan. That Khan was so over-the-top, he practically grabbed you by the throat and demanded that you look at his chest. It would be a thing of beauty to see a film-maker capture that again.

I think it would also be refreshing, too. Abrams’ “Star Trek” was a Big Dumb Action movie, but it got away from the Oh-So-Seriousness that has plagued Star Trek since The Next Generation. I’ll take some extra ham any day in the latest movie.